


Some Gorgon Thing really, with a Mirror

by frustratedFreeboota



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 12:37:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20340238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frustratedFreeboota/pseuds/frustratedFreeboota
Summary: Some agender gorgon gives an account of their origins.





	Some Gorgon Thing really, with a Mirror

Cursed?

Oh yes, the hair. No, I'm quite fond of it really. Well if you insist, I can't imagine there's much you can do about it. Stared too long into a magic mirror. There's only so many times you can be called handsome when you're hoping to be called pretty. Or cute. Or anything at all really. And there's only so long one can be told that there is absolutely nothing feminine about oneself before one will latch on to what little one has.

Well it was a while ago, and I'd gone and set out to try and find the right gift for a friend of mine. They're great, they dress like they're going to be the next Doctor after Jodie. Now much as Bedknobs and Broomsticks would tell you, you can find just about anything on Portobello Road, provided of course that you are prepared to haggle, wander into buildings to find the hidden market stalls, and brave the distinctive smell of corkscrew cut chips. London has no shortage of marketplaces with exotic street food, though few boast as odd and as disparate a collection of jewellery stalls. It was amongst such stalls that I found the mirror, nestled beside a "gold plated" "megalodon tooth" on a "silver" chain with a little hand written piece of paper by the side explaining that a megalodon was a dinosaur shark. I've a lingering curiosity what might have happened had I bought the tooth instead. Some sort of snaggle toothed woman with a few fins and a tail one supposes. The stall would be hard for me to find again, though not impossible. To say that it was between a stall that sold used denim jackets and a stall that sold prints of Disney's Alice in Wonderland would be to describe half of the marketplace.

Anyway, the mirror. The mirror was faux gold, rimmed with a cobra motif. Apologies if that's not the correct language, as posh as I try to sound I'm as common as dirt. American, even. The handle of the mirror was plain enough and lacking in any sort of ornamentation other than those curvy bits, while the mirror's face was surrounded in twisted coils with hooded head at each corner. The reverse was a sort of spiral sort of thing made from entwined serpent's bodies with no tail in sight. It was pretty, I had money to spare, and I wanted it, and so immediately I set about haggling the woman at the stall from 40 quid down to a tenner. I took it home with me alongside a graphic novel on the history of queer studies from a comics shop down the road and a little wooden bow tie from another market stall for that friend of mine. They loved it.

It was a full week to the day before I first heard the hissing. I'd used the mirror often enough, combing my hair mostly, the wind used to make an awful mess of it, and I was fixing my parting when there came a hiss, and I found myself checking the windowframe for another break in the seal. No such break, but when I turned back to the mirror there was an oddity. Something off, like when you walk into your room and you can tell that someone has moved stuff around. I'd have stayed there gawking at myself all morning if I hadn't had work to go to.

I made it to work that day without any crashed cars, traffic, or buses that forgot to stop at my stop, a change from the usual way of things, and having gotten in nice and early I decided to not do any work for an hour or so. I read an inbox worth of emails, even the banal company messages, I took my sweet time walking to get my morning coffee and waiting for it to brew, and as soon as anyone that would actually notice someone slacking off showed up I departed to the nearest set of gender neutral lavatories, ten minutes away. I was beset upon by that hissing again as soon as I took my stall, and took it to be something wrong with the pipes at work again. I gave my reflection a study as I went about washing my hands afterwards. The face in the mirror was just ever so subtly off. And my eyes were definitely more of a green than a blue. They'd always been more of a blue green before, despite my firmest protestations that they were more blue than green, but now they were definitely more green than blue. Some trick of the light, the room was definitely lit in yellow.

I got to the hand dryer, and for a moment I found myself looking into my distorted reflection in the little shiny metal bit on the front. My hair was tossed about by the excessive wind the thing put out. Somewhere behind the rush of wind I swore that hissing was there again.

I was out of the everyone's loos and halfway down the corridor when something brushed against my neck. I span about, sure someone had touched me, but I was quite alone aside from the room full of office shirts at their desks. Another tickling at the back of my neck, and I reached back to rub at the spot where whatever it was was touching me, and I felt something wet. I was struck by a sudden and morbid feeling, and was more than relieved when my hand didn't come back with a drop of blood. I swore that I could hear that hiss again.

"Excuse me?" came a voice, and I was alarmed to find that I was taking up a bit too much space for a rather small woman with a clipboard to fit through. I stepped to one side, face red with the shame of a Brit who'd caused someone a small bother, and once she'd passed I marched off back down the corridor towards my desk. 

By the end of the day any lingering doubts and worries about the experience of the morning had long since passed, and not wanting to make the five minute trek for the everyone's stalls in the next building along, I made a brief venture into the men's room to relieve myself before a half hour bus ride and a twenty minute walk on the way home. A solitary man leaving the men's glanced twice at me, verifying that the long haired blonde before him wasn't a girl that was about to wander in by accident. The wondrous ambiguity that a good head of hair will afford you in the world of bald and balding Brits. Another wash of my hands, and then a quick look in the mirror just to see if the spots beneath my eyes were still there. They were there, along with the green eyes, and a distinct furrow running down the front of my office shirt where my lanyard and tie lay between two small but still noticeable lumps.

My heart lept, and I watched with mingled horror and delight as the lines of the loose office wear shifted a little at a time. A distinct movement of the cheap cotton in time with my breathing.

I had minutes until the bus, I reminded myself, desperate to drag myself away. Best to tidy up my laptop. And my headphones would go missing if I left them alone for more than a minute or two.

But there it was, a chest of sorts, the ambiguity to my features. Still me, just... softened. A subtle change of the lines and curves to where I could look at me and say that wasn't a man's face. I stayed there awhile, entranced as a little head poked its way out from under the rest of my hair, finally answering where all that hissing had been coming from. Rather pleasant isn't it? Saves on shampoo.

You know, for all the trouble that mirror brought into my life, it gave me nothing that I hadn't already wished for. Oh well. I suppose you'd want a look at the thing if you're serious about this whole curse-breaking business. It's up there, in the top drawer, in the box beneath the paintbrushes. 

Yes, that's the one. Pretty isn't it? The woman at the market called it 18 carat, though I'd be surprised if there was so much as a drop of gold in the thing. Oh? Oh no, I'm afraid I had to remove the glass. You must understand, I had to. Fit of paranoia. The mere thought that there was the slightest chance that someone could just smash the thing and break my "curse" was too much to bear. No, I'm afraid I am quite comfortable like this. Much more pretty than handsome now. No need to fix anything. 

Look at you, all scurrying about. The door is locked, before you try it. No, I'm afraid the most you can hope for at this point is making a good pose. I must apologise, I was one for gloating well before I was "cursed". I may have even been a little bit diabolical beforehand too. Being called selfish and evil and all sorts just for wanting to be different to how you were born will do that to you. I don't know if you quite get that. I'm not cursed. I'm fine.

Portobello Road, Portobello Road, you can find what you want on Portobello Road. Bubble tea and tweed lingerie and little cursed mirrors framed with snakes.


End file.
